Please welcome Ann Grant to my blog, to talk about her new release, Saving Grace!
Hello and thanks for having me here!
While Kelly writes steamy romance, I write women's fiction. Saving Grace
is a love story - but it's a love story between a husband and a wife as they are forced to face the problems in their marriage by a seemingly minor accident. There
are also some pretty steamy scenes between Grace and Rob!
There's also a lot of humor in Saving Grace. Despite the serious topics, like chronic pain syndrome, anxiety disorders and marital breakdown, Grace is a funny woman (I think, lol!) As she goes through this journey she reflects on how she got to this point in her life, especially at the point where she seems to have lost everything - her husband, her kids, maybe her job. But Grace is a strong, smart woman, and comes to see how she's contributed to the disintegration of her life.
For those of us who are married and have been for a while, we know how that spark sometimes fades. How husbands and wives start to take each other for granted. How we don't show appreciation for each other, even though we still love each other. We take on roles in our marriage and sometimes those work really well, and sometimes they don't. And when one partner is feeling dissatisfied but keeps it all tightly contained inside, those feelings can come out in dangerous, destructive ways.
When Grace falls down the stairs on a typical busy morning trying to get her family out the door to school and work, her injuries are pretty bad. But everyone believes she'll get better quickly. She's young and healthy - why wouldn't she? But she doesn't get better and minor injuries turn into a life-changing disorder called chronic pain syndrome. She descends into a downward spiral of doctor-shopping, addiction and denial. But she has a lot to fight for, and eventually she does. She fights for Rob and in the end, he fights for her too.
Have you ever been in a relationship where one or both of you started to take each other for granted? How did you deal with that?
Here's a short excerpt from Saving Grace:
I nodded, his fingers still on my bare skin, sending
little sparking shivers over me.
He leaned forward slowly, and I closed my eyes as his
mouth touched mine, so gentle and warm. I opened for him and kissed him back, a
long, soft kiss full of questions and hesitant desire.
His hand came back up to my face, holding me while we
kissed, our mouths moving against each other. His tongue licked inside my mouth
softly, and I touched my tongue to his. He gave a little groan and slid his
hand around to the back of my head, into my hair, holding me tighter.
I realized I was still holding my cup of coffee, and I
pulled back and leaned over to set the cup on the table. I turned back to him,
and again, our eyes met. I had a million wordless questions that I sought answers
for in his eyes, but all I saw there were more questions.
Then we were kissing again, deeper, hungrier, and he
pulled me up against him. I gave a little gasp, of both pain and pleasure, and
he lifted his mouth from mine.
“Are you okay?”
“God, no,” I gasped. I grabbed his neck and pulled his
head back down to mine, seeking his mouth, almost crawling into his lap.
He made a muffled sound and wrapped his arms around me,
holding me close. It felt incredibly good to be held by him, so big and strong
and warm. His heart thudded in his broad chest pressed against mine, and his
hands trembled just a little as they moved over me.
When his hand closed over my breast, I arched into it,
aching and needy. We kissed more, mouths wet and sliding. He tasted faintly
like coffee and smelled so good, like him, the sporty aftershave that he’d used
forever. I moaned into his mouth, and his fingers tightened on my breast.
My skin was hot and tight, my clothes constricting. I
wanted to rip them off and rub my naked body against his. Then his hands slid
beneath the T-shirt onto my bare skin and I quivered with pleasure. He slid his
mouth from mine, down the side of my neck, and sucked a little. Oh, God.
It was like we were back in college, making out on the
couch, and it was so hot I was afraid we were going to melt the furniture. My
head fell back to let him lick my throat, my whole body shivering with delight.
I wanted to feel his skin, too, and I pulled at his
shirt until I found the bottom of it and pushed it up. I slid my hands up over
his chest, over the hard muscles and crisp hair there.
“Ah, Christ, Grace,” he muttered, and he nipped my
shoulder and made me jump. Then he moved back and grabbed hold of the hem of my
shirt and pulled it up and over my head, leaving me sitting there in my bra.
He eyed the new turquoise lace bra appreciatively.
Well, it was no longer new, but he hadn’t seen it.
“My panties match it,” I told him in a not very subtle
invitation.
He groaned. “Grace,” he said. “You’re so sexy.”
And here I thought he’d been admiring my lingerie. My
heart squeezed a little and softened. He pushed me down, gently, onto my back
and leaned over me to undo the button of my jeans and tug down the zipper. I
lifted my hips (now all those pelvic tilts paid off) to allow him to draw off
my jeans.
“Very nice,” he said.
“The panties?” I clarified. His mouth curved up.
“The panties too,” he said. “Very pretty.”
“I still have a lump,” I whispered, suddenly
self-conscious.
“Huh? A lump?”
“On my hip. It’s still not gone. It’s gross.”
He examined my hip and rolled his eyes. “It’s barely
noticeable,” he said. Then he bent and kissed it. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
He pressed a kiss to the little lace panel that covered
my curls. My fingers curled into fists at my sides. I was breathless, excited,
dizzy. I yearned for him to touch me more there. It had been so, so long. I
struggled to open my eyes to look at him. His face was tight, his eyes dark,
his beautiful mouth open just slightly as he gazed down at my body.
“I don’t know how I could have forgotten,” he said, his
voice low and husky, “just how gorgeous and sexy you are.”
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